How I was born

This is the story of how I came to be born. Of course, with my father in his pomp, it had to encompass drama, a foreign country and newspapers. My dad moved to France on a one
year contract to modernise a Parisian rag and during that stay I was
born. They booked a doctor and a clinic, but when the day came it
seems the doctor had gone off on holiday. The replacement was nowhere to
be found. A heatwave was in full swing. Finally a place is found and
the labour goes ahead. My father was a newspaper man, how could such a story not be in the press.


I was a miracle baby. They'd already adopted my sister after
being told no babies could ever be made, but it came to pass that
technology moved on and a fix was found. He told me this story many
times, proud to have created such a memorable event. I was the first
born, and wasn't even supposed to happen.
Dad is not there for the birth, this is Paris, 1961, but he turns up the next morning to visit mother and baby.
"Where is our baby?" he asked.
"I don't know," says my mother, plaintively. He rings the bell and a nurse appears.
"Nurse," he commands. "We would like to see our baby."
A few minutes later another nurse ("she couldn't have been more than fourteen, tiny") appears at the door holding a baby. She holds him up and the parents study it for a while. They smile. "Very nice, thank you," they say. She disappears again with the baby.
Years later I find this photo, the presentation of the lamb.